“The Uber Eats business continues to grow at unprecedented rates,” says Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. “Revenue has almost tripled year on year. That business continues to accelerate. It looks like the Eats business is sticky. I wouldn’t count on the growth rates we are having now post-pandemic. However, I do think that you are going to have big growth rates off of a much larger base as a result of everything that has happened.”

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says that Uber Eats is growing at unprecedented rates during the pandemic and he expects the business to do well post-pandemic as well:

Uber Eats Growing At Unprecedented Rate

On the Uber Eats side, it is an entirely different story where the business continues to grow at unprecedented rates. Revenue has almost tripled year on year. That business continues to accelerate. When we look at Eats we are seeing some great trends. The monthly actives on Eats are up 70% on a year on year basis. The trips are up 110% on a year on year basis. New orders, orders per eater, or basket sizes, all of these trends are up double-digit.

We’ve taken a look at Eats’ performance in markets that are opening up such as New York City and we haven’t seen any kind of performance degradation in Eats. What that suggests to us is that there is a whole new class of consumer that’s experiencing the delight of being able to pick anything and have it delivered within 30 minutes and eat what you want how you want it. It looks like the Eats business is sticky. I wouldn’t count on the growth rates we are having now post-pandemic. However, I do think that you are going to have big growth rates off of a much larger base as a result of everything that has happened.

As Cities Open Up Uber Opens Up

It really is impossible to tell when the mobility business can come back. It depends entirely on the health situation on the ground. With markets that are opening up faster because of the health situation or the society, things are coming back. For example, we looked in New York City where the counts have been down relative to the rest of the country and in just October our volumes were 63% of pre-pandemic levels. This is materially higher than they were in the rest of the nation.

You have week-day use cases of the service outside of commute that is now at pre-pandemic levels or higher. As cities open up Uber opens up as well. We actually think that we can be a beneficiary of certain trends that we’re seeing.

We have invested in safety such as digital mask verification. We also have the No Mask No Rides advertising campaigns. People are feeling safer using Uber. Our reliability and predictability are absolutely unrivaled. While we look at share and we always want to make sure that we are competitive really what we focus on is the reliability of the service and safety of our drivers and hopefully coming back as the health situation improves.

Vaccine Could Radically Improve Bookings

There is a pretty consistent improvement in the mobility business as you go month to month to month. This is one of the benefits of having a truly global business. Within that steady improvement, there are all sorts of ups and downs. Hong Kong has had some openings and closings. Obviously, Europe is now going through another shutdown. US case counts are moving up. The individual curves are not smooth. But when you look at our global portfolio it smooths out.

We are seeing a month to month improvement. For example, if you look at our last quarter overall gross bookings were down 50%. In September, the last month of the quarter, they were down only 44%. You just see this kind of consistent improvement. We think that the consistent improvement will continue into next year. We think a vaccine could radically improve the slope of that improvement.